caerula's Diaryland Diary

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reading update

I want to say something about my current reading material. I'm reading a variety of things at the moment, which drives BigBlue crazy; he's always asking me how I keep the plots and characters and things straight in my head. I almost always am reading more than one thing at a time, however. I never know what I'll feel like picking up at any given moment. He's reading a lot more since we got married, probably out of self-defense, but he's so linear and straightforward that it doesn't even occur to him to start another book while he's already got one going. He has to get things done before he starts something else, whether it's a book or the dishes. Which is fortunate for me; otherwise our apartment would be a pit.


This morning I finished Neil Gaimen's new book American Gods, which I picked up at the library on Monday. I was pleased to find it there; it's not the sort of thing MPL acquires, as a rule, since I stopped working there last year. I was actually a bit late to work this morning because I needed to finish it all at once. It was a very good book, and very different from the two other things I've read by Gaiman, Neverwhere and Stardust, which were both very good and very different from each other. The premise of AG is quite original, and at the same time so obvious: what happens to all the gods people bring to America from their homelands, and then forget? And who are the new gods we create every day? I think the book could have benefited from a little more editing and a bit tighter plotting, but it was excellent, all in all. There was one passage I wanted to quote but I forgot to bring the book with me; a girl describes her belief system, and it is the only thing I've ever read which comes close to stating my inarticulate world view.
I'm still rereading Gaudy Night, by Dorothy L. Sayers, in bits and pieces. I talked about it a little yesterday, mostly in relation to how it's being discussed on List. But there's so much more in it that I can't discuss. I remember so clearly the effect it had on me when I first read it, something like three years ago now. It's odd to think I came to DLS fairly late, for me; the Queen had GN sitting on her bookshelf in the apartment we shared our first year in grad school, and I never picked it up; it wasn't until two years later that it occured to me to read it. And then I was just entranced, and one of the things I clearly remember is crying after I read the punt scene, thinking that I would never ever feel like that about anyone, and particularly not the person I was dating at the time. As that person turned out to be the man I married, I guess I was wrong. I think sometimes I've read too much in my life; that the things I've read have given me expectations that life will never be able to live up to. That's what I thought when I first read Harriet's realization of her feelings for Peter. But more often, now, I believe that the things I read that give me that feeling, instead of setting me up for disappointment, give me something to strive for, a goal that I might never measure up to, but know that I'm better for trying to reach.
I'm not sure any of that was really very wise or insightful, more like early morning blathering. But I guess if I'm going to have an ideal to look towards, I could do a lot worse than Peter and Harriet.
I tried to read Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer. It's a borderline YA fantasy that has gotten a lot of press recently, and it sounded interesting. But I gave up less than half way through, and here's why: none of the characters were the least bit sympathetic, not even remotely. I don't always have to like the people in books; they don't all have to be good guys. But there should be something to relate to, something that makes them real, and no one in this book had that. Not the 12-year-old criminal mastermind, not his psychotic mother, not the kidnapped Elite Commando Forces fairy. The plot had definite possibilities, but then it became "Mission Impossible" with fairy folk instead of Tom Cruise, and I completely lost interest. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.
I'm still reading lots of Terry Pratchett. Usually if I read too many series books too close together I get sick of them, but I've read 7 or 8 of his books in the last month and am still craving more. This is another person I can't believe I've just discovered, and I'm grateful to the people on List who kept mentioning him, and finally spurred me to pick one up. I've found many great authors from the List that I'd somehow overlooked; Diana Wynne Jones is another notable one. But Pratchett's sense of humor and irony suit me perfectly, and I think I'll treasure these books for a long time. BB is also enjoying them; he's read Equal Rites and part of The Truth and is in the middle of Carpe Jugulum. He's so picky about what books to read that I'm really happy when he finds a series; I know it will keep him busy for a while. It gives me a major feeling of accomplishment, that I've got him reading novels for enjoyment. He really never did before he met me, a state of being which is difficult for me to imagine. But I suppose when you were never read to as a child, never encouraged by relatives buying you books not just at birthdays and Christmas, but just because they saw a book they thought you'd like (that's how I discovered Anne of Green Gables, in 5th grade), and never saw your parents or other friends caught up in books; well, I suppose it's understandable. But I knew if I find the right books he'd get sucked in; he has the imagination, and that ability to hyper-focus, that makes a great reader. And I knew it would be hard to be a reader married to a non-reader. But BB wasn't a non-reader, as it turned out; he was a reader who hadn't discovered it yet. Thank goodness.

8:21 a.m. - 2001-06-29

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